That’s more or less how a school-shooting rampage that left eight dead in Finland is being portrayed by the news media, because the killer posted videos on YouTube implying that the rampage was in the offing. For example, This CNN story on the killings was once headlined “Finland school shooting linked to YouTube” on CNN.com’s front page. This is Bryan Alexander territory, I know, but you never saw headlines like “Columbine school shooting linked to pen and paper” because Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kept diaries.

Speaking of Harris and Klebold, the Finnish murderer, Pekka Eric Auvinen, shared their affinity for German industrial act KMFDM. This is a trait that all three shared with me (or at least me in high school and college), so I think it’s equally meaningless.

All told it’s a story rife with elements that make for sensationalistic, Robert Downey Jr. in Natural Born Killers-style reporting, right down his pose and T-shirt in the photo above.

(Video still by STF/AFP/Getty Images, via Andrew Sullivan)

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